Two views of the Matchbox, with David & Jackie (upper black and white). Photo by Anthony Mata.

A good bar is a rich collection of loose change.

The patrons are a deep pocket of old and young, nickels and dimers, half dollars and occasional slugs.

The Matchbox, 770 N. Milwaukee, is my lucky penny.

I’ve been going to the Matchbox since 2000. I was breaking up with a girlfriend in Palmer Square and the Matchbox was my shrink couch on the way home to my place in the West Loop. Things change. I fell in love again at the Matchbox. Life moves on.

And the Matchbox was sold last week.

Owners Jackie and David Gevercer sold to Chicago bar and restauranteurs Gregg Weinstein and Kevin Killerman (Blind Robin, Rex Tavern).  Their first project together was Kincade’s, 950 W. Armitage, in 1986. They brought the former magician’s bar Schulien’s back to life as O’Donovan’s, 2100 W. Irving Park. Weinstein and Killerman plan to lovingly restore the hearty brick Matchbox and eventually reopen the historic Silver Palm dining car next door.

“The (Matchbox) building is falling down,” Weinstein said in a Sunday night interview. “The first day I looked at it I thought, ‘The only thing you can do with this thing is bulldoze it.’ We’re trying to save it. It is an icon. I sold beer to that place 30 years ago when I was a beer salesman for Budweiser.

“We want to bring back the old feel. We’ve been looking at old pictures. Some of these old Chicago buildings have been neglected. When you start peeling that onion back you never know what you’re going to find. We’re going to work our way inward. Start from the top -down, outside. Bricks, windows, tuckpointing, air conditioning. Things that it needs just to survive. It literally rains inside there. It’s frightening. They need fresh tools and toys to work with.”

The Silver Palm attained national attention in 2009 when Anthony Bourdain proclaimed the restaurant’s Three Little Pigs sandwich (deep-fried pork cutlet, bacon and smoked ham) as “the greatest sandwich in America.” The sandwich was created by Matchbox bartender Dan Palm who later opened a Wicker Park bar with his brother Eric Palm, also a Matchbox bartender. Bourdain and the Palm brothers have all passed away.

A good bar is a bouquet of warm memories.

The Matchbox bills itself as “Chicago’s Most Intimate Bar,” and yeah, there are only 18 barstools along a narrow pathway. When I started drinking at the Matchbox, female customers and bartenders like Jackie and Colleen Bush would dance on the bar. One time a friend of mine was almost decapitated by dancing underneath the bar’s ceiling fan.

People don’t have fun like that anymore.

The Matchbox had previously been The Bohemian Club, a package liquor store and old man bar run by an old man who never bothered to expand in the empty lot south of his bar (where the Silver Palm train car is today.) His name was Sam and he was an Eastern European immigrant with a thick accent. Sam wanted to change the club’s name to The Matchbook in the 1950s because the sideway layout resembled a matchbook. However, when Sam went to apply for his license his accent was so thick, the name was misunderstood as Matchbox.

Matchbox, circa 1950s (Courtesy of Anthony Mata)

Chicago restauranteur David Gevercer purchased The  Matchbook/Matchbox on June 2, 1995, so this is the Matchbox’s 25th anniversary.

David, 72, married Jackie in the Silver Palm in 2002.

Together, in 2012 they opened a bed and breakfast called Casa Jacqueline on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.

Together they sold the Matchbox in part because of David’s health challenges. “We’re just getting older and ready to go,” Jackie said on Monday.

The Matchbox (Photo by Anthony Mata)

Matchbox regulars knew the bar was on the market. It is a good outcome because the bar and the Silver Palm will not be razed for an office building or an Amazon warehouse. The Silver Palm was built in 1947 for the Atlantic Coast Railroad and ran on a line from New York City to Miami. David discovered the car while surfing on the Internet. Acquired by Amtrak in the 1980s, the car was out of service and sitting in a suburb of Los Angeles.

Weinstein said, “Can’t really say what the Silver Palm is going to be. We have a couple of plans. It will be a thing. There will be a bar inside that train car. There will be a kitchen. We have two ideas which I can’t speak of. But if one doesn’t work we can flip it fast and go in another direction. We will do something with it because it is such a cool thing.” Weinstein has only begun to obtain estimates for the project. He guesses “a minimum of $50,000” will be needed for tuckpointing and roofing.

I always tell out of towners to visit the Matchbox. For a metropolis as fragmented as Chicago, the Matchbox celebrated our city’s rich diversity. On any given night you can rub shoulders with a musician, a cop, a chef, an artist or even a forlorn journalist. From the time I first set foot into the Matchbox the clientele has been multiracial, gay, straight, easy-going and interesting.

Many good bars have a sense of belonging, but the Matchbox community runs deep. Blues-rock musicians John Carpender, Andon Davis, and Tom Gerlach have played the free Matchbox July 4 anniversary party for the past 14 years. Gerlach created the band just for that occasion.

Long time Matchbox staffer and manager Anthony Mata said, “Because it is so small you can’t really sit in a corner by yourself. You’re gonna have to sit next to somebody. As a bartender,  I can say something out loud to everybody at once. It is intimate and that may lead to the welcoming feel. I’ve traveled the states extensively and visited many bars along the way. When I come home after a long road trip I always head straight to the Box.”

Some of my Matchbox friends are dead: Damien Reynolds and his cab driving/Woodstock stories. The kind eyes from Robbie Klein. “Crazy Larry,” the Jerry Lewis lookalike, who like me, migrated from Weeds to the Matchbox. The gentle soul of Neil Montana who always looked inward while standing by the front window. And Glen Berry, the bartender from Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap who made it a point to make the Matchbox one of his homes on life’s road.

Sometimes I see them when I take a sip of Cazadores and look at the fresh flowers that are delivered every Thursday to the Matchbox. I have always loved that about the Matchbox. In 2015 David told me, “The flower tradition started as far back as The Gare St. Lazare (his 1980s Lincoln Park restaurant) where we rescued flowers from conventions. I can’t think of any establishment I have managed that didn’t use fresh flowers. Just watch people’s expressions when they see fresh flowers, especially in taverns.”

David and Jackie in Mexico 2016 (Photo by Anthony Mata)

Since 1997 the flowers have been delivered from Anthony Gowder Designs in Chicago. Owner Anthony Gowder did not know of any other Chicago bar that presents fresh flowers on a weekly basis. Of course, upscale downtown and Fulton Market restaurants have fresh flowers, but not a small neighborhood bar.

“For Dave and Jackie it was part of the culture of the Matchbox, its own rhythm,” Gowder told me in 2015. “They allowed us to put in the weirdest and most unusual blossoms. There’s been everything from hanging heliconia to fabulous orchids. They’re our longest- standing customer. Because they’ve been with us so long we always have them at the top of our head when we’re
shopping for a product: ‘What are we going to ship to the Matchbox this week?’

Thanks, David. (D. Hoekstra photo)

The Matchbox is managed by Mata and Chris Fields. They have been at the Box for 20 years. For ten years they played in the Chicago metal band Den of Vipers. I got to know Tony when he was chef at the Silver Palm, maneuvering like a tight rope walker in the train car’s 220 square foot kitchen. His father was a cowboy from Texas and Tony grew up in Aurora, Ill. His aunt worked at the Aurora Beacon-News, where I started my career.

I will always remember Chris when we watched the Cubs win the World Series with four other people in the bar. That is until three priests from neighboring Saint John Cantius Catholic Church walked into the tavern with big smiles and a big “W” flag.

Mata and Fields lead a staff of bartenders whose drink knowledge and skills of serving in small quarters are only eclipsed by their big personalities. I don’t talk much at all, but I talk to these folks. They are family.

The Matchbox is one of Chicago’s most unique bars. It needs to be treated that way.

Weinstein said, “The staff stays. If something changes and they’re unhappy, I can’t stop those things. I don’t want to change anything. I would be a fool to walk in there with a baseball bat, take some big swings and knock things down. There’s no timetable and we don’t want to close the place (for repairs.) We’re trying to keep it running. We like what it is.

“And we’re going to save it.”

A good bar deserves nothing less.

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